Chapter III

What lore forlorn,
What tale of tales,
When man’s poor stock
Of wisdom fails
In Fire’s cave,
Is born!
Here Jack shall knock,
--That hero brave
On the giant’s door ...
With rumbling snore
The monster turns
From sleep,
And yawns....
But the sheep
Of Little Bo-Peep
(By magic quick
To wolves now turning)
Are following Jack.
Hark, crackle crack!
(Is it fire burning?)
They crunch, they lick
Up “Fe, Fo, Fum.”
Sucking his thumb
Little Jack Horner
Creeps from the corner
Where he had hidden
Behind a pie
From the giant’s eye.

Now doors as bidden
Do open fly,
And in they throng--
The prisoners all
With a merry song.
Here’s Old King Cole
To lead the ball!
How merrily
His fiddlers three
Strike up the air
That pleases his soul--
A mighty sound
As of wind in chimneys
When trees are bare....
Round and round
In smoke-wreaths whirl
Prince, Shepherd-girl,
King, goose-girl, queen,
All who have been
For joy of children,
And company,
Since tales began:
All that a man
Can believe and be
Never again;
Save when in fire
(Apple-logs green
Crossed cunningly)
He sees it plain,
As I have seen,
This thronged night-fire:
Such light that shines
Through Poetry and
Small tumbling strain
Of song, or from a window-pane
As daylight fails,
As evening pales
In a sweet land
Shadowed with pines,
Peopled with children-haunted pines
Murmuring fairy-tales.

THE LIFE THAT’S UNDER THE GROUND

It’s funny to think of the life that’s under the ground.
The mole that snouted up that loose red mound
Of earth; the worm that turned those worm-casts; now,
_They_ are enough to pucker any man’s brow.

Once (I was only a boy) I caught a mole,
And he was angry, and bit a little hole
In the ball of my thumb. Worms I have often found,
Glow-worms, and ones like this that slithe around.

* * * * *

It’s funny to think of the life that’s under ground.

EPITAPH

This little girl
In brown earth lies.
She shall sweeten the sweet air
Of Paradise
With her slow lovely speech
And wondering eyes.

INVOCATION--AND REPLY

Hear me, brave words,
You who of old
Came singing birds
To a poet’s call:
“_Many have called us, yet we served not all._”
Come words of jade
To make green eyes
Of a little maid,
Come words that sing
And let her linnet speech now softly ring.

Ivory words
Denote her breasts,
Two fluttering birds
That sit and sing
For joy of some unseen delicious spring.

Dusky words weave
Her falling hair,
The world bereave
Of shadows long
And shake them in a sombre tangled throng.

Come you most durable
Shining words,
’Gainst the incurable
Drift of Time
Guard me her sweetness safe within a rhyme.

* * * * *

_Is that thy need?_--Truly the all-complete
Imperious need of every mortal lover
Since life was lived in Time and Time was rover--
To carve the image of that passing-sweet
Swift withering flower of Beauty naméd Love;
To crystallize a moment’s grace for ever.
(“_The old old plea yet that is not enough!_”
_Words whisper_); to seize Joy; to stay the river
Of ever-flowing water bearing down
To shadowy oceans all we crave to mind us
Of Beauty and her heart of perfect peace.
Words, aid me! Set your Time-defying crown
On all my heart would never more release.
Where wait ye, words? _Here._ Come! _No, poet, find us!_

MADNESS

“Nothing without a cause,”
You say. _Why did the wind
Point with a thin
Lean finger then?_

“Laws behind the laws,
And behind all a mind.”
_A mind: just so.
Somebody telling it to!_

_Bidding it point and beckon
And wave;
Bidding it blast and blacken
All life was,
With thoughts of one in a grave,
And wind stroking the grass._

GLOUCESTERSHIRE MEN

Gloucester, Glevum, and Caer Glow,
The name is nothing! Then as now
Men mowed the meadow-grass for cattle,
Died for Gloucestershire in battle,
Fought, and loved, and built, and planned,
And wrested with this kindly land.

Man’s tiny spark of mortal fire
Seems suddenly big in Gloucestershire.
The little chain of life on earth
Lengthens out round Minsterworth.
Here and in all the country round
Marks of men are on the ground.

Here no brooding iron peak,
No barren desert is, to shriek
The little loneliness of man,
Whose days are measured by a span;
But in the faces of our brothers
See we the looks of those old “others”:

The men in yonder humped-up barrow,
Crouched with their mortal joys and sorrow;
The Roman soldier sound asleep
By walls where English weeds slow creep
(A thousand years are but a span ...):
Each dead man was a Gloucestershire man!

A BALLADE OF GLOUCESTERSHIRE TOWNS

Or ever in Cheltenham town dyspeptic flaunted
His finery, or steel-clad Normans came
To build that tower at Tewkesbury bird-haunted:
Or ever rose that town of olden fame--
Ciceter, out of Roman arms and flame:
Before the older Bristol was begot
Of Keltic fathers: Caer Glow was a name.
Old Gloucester reigns the king of all the lot!

Caer Glow, “the splendid city,” so they called it,
Those funny beggars brilliant in woad;
And then the tramping Romans came and walled it
And called it Glevum, throwing many a road
Through and around it. Dane and Saxon strode
Awhile its streets; then they whose quills did blot
That Domesday Book which every city showed,
Old Gloucester reigns the king of all the lot!

Bristol, that blue-eyed sailor-man, who sallied
Forth to adventure, latterly has grown
A merchant-prince, respectable, pot-bellied.
Winchcombe--poor pagan queen--doth lack a throne.
Ciceter keeps her soul, but she alone:
For Tewkesbury’s soul is in a pewter-pot,
And Cheltenham never had one of her own.
Old Gloucester reigns the king of all the lot!

L’ENVOY

Prince, you have travelled far and wide, and seen
Much nicer towns than these? “All Tommy rot!”
(“Your Royal Highness surely jests,” I mean.)
Old Gloucester reigns the king of all the lot!

LUCKY

Lucky to live,
Lucky again
To have met and marched
With the finest men
(So I believe)
Earth ever bred
Since heaven was arched....
_But they are dead._

Lucky to love,
Most lucky to
Have loved, of all
I might have, you
Whom Time doth prove
Most tender-hearted
And beautiful....
_But we are parted._

CAROL

Sing lullaby, sing lullaby,
While snow doth softly fall,
Sing lullaby to Jesus
Born in an oxen-stall.

Sing lullaby to Jesus,
Born now in Bethlehem,
The naked blackthorn’s growing
To weave His diadem.

Sing lullaby, sing lullaby,
While thickly snow doth fall,
Sing lullaby to Jesus
The Saviour of all.

GOD’S BEAUTY IN THE SKY

God’s beauty in the sky,
And in a silver cloud:
Everywhere in the world
His beauty cries aloud.

But why should I talk of it?
Let me drink it up
As now I drink this cider
From a big blue cup!

THE LOST WORLD

What hues, what dances
Do I remember
Lighter than leaves dancing
And red November?
Why does my heart whisper
Under the trees,
“There are brighter colours and lighter
Dancers than these”?

What dream more golden
In firelight hovers
Than these faces of friends
And trusty lovers?
Why does my heart whisper
In this gay peace,
“There are bolder lovers and older
Comrades than these”?

_PROSE POEMS_

DAWN

ARISE!--ARISE!

Dew, like a thousand gems, is in the hair of the dear earth eager to dance.

THE VISIBLE WORLD

Rub your eyes! If a man believe not in earth, how should he believe in heaven? If he love not the visible, how should he its high symbol?

FUEL

You are burning me in a flame whereat starved men and women may warm themselves. But you are angry that the winds blow my ashes into your eyes.

BLOW, INVISIBLE MOUTHS!

Did God blow upon a reed (having cut it to His mind), what melodies might not be piped!--what news of glorious birth! To you, beloved Dead, I give my life that is but a reed. Blow, blow, invisible mouths of God!

ANGRY LOVER

Before God’s throne came the angry lover. “I am betrayed!” he cried, and the courts of Heaven rang again with the sound of the word. “Thy daughter Life have I wooed. For her have I given all--yea, all--since that is the price of love, and now, behold, Thou hast given me her dark sister, Death!”

“Yet have I but one daughter,” answered God.

“Is it possible that even yet thou dost not know me?” whispered the veiled one.

HOME

HOME!--HOME!

All night the orchards sighing and surging.... All night the branches tossing and gesturing against the moon.... All night the scent of the blossom.... But why do they say that I am dead?

LOVE SONG

He sang of the strong labouring of stars that wheel in their courses, and of passionate Suns.... Songs of courage against destiny, of scorn against mean riches; songs of sorrow, and of dancing joy; of childhood, old age, and life again after. But never a song sang he of his beloved. Therefore she laughed, and knew that he was still her slave.

THE WINDOW

Blinking at the sun, what things of horror come peering out of me!--what ages of beasts! O that God would look out of me upon His world--that I might be a window for the eyes of Christ!

BROTHERS

Are men only our brothers? Were not the animals and the stars at Bethlehem?

HOLY BROTHERHOOD

O you who have found mankind for a brother, be not content! You are brothers and sisters of angels and archangels: and your feet are on the glimmering roadways of unimaginable stars.

_Printed by Hazell, Watson & Viney, Ld., London and Aylesbury._

TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES:

Italicized text is surrounded by underscores: _italics_.

Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.